iPad: The magazine will arrive more tomorrow - II

Reading linear or cross?

Further pages of an ordinary place, as proposed conversion homothetic, we tried to imagine an architecture that makes it more rational reading a magazine. This resulted in what we call, for want of better, "read Cross": it scrolls horizontally between different items, and vertically to read the whole of a long subject. In practice, you move from one section to the next in "turning" the page of a finger, then one of them if you are interested in is a vertical gesture as you discover its sequel.

AutoPlus has several months of an iPad version that has a unique feature: the version Portrait (vertical) shows a facsimile of the print magazine, while the version is full landscape, according to a principle of reading on the cross. AutoPlus is posted on the kiosk by Immanens. "We sometimes hear: readers do not want to read linear type PDF. "Notes Olivier Boutin, COO of Digital Lagardere Active. "That seems a bit hasty opinion! "Since last April, Lagardere Active has published on the App Store a score of major titles, the Paris-Match in Psychologies through it, or the First Journal de Mickey. "The tools offer a choice of Aquafadas to editors: reading a line or cross "says Claudia Zimmer, President of Aquafadas.”On the Express, the choice was made to read a cross. But the PDF "naked" works well! Personally, I'm not really convinced by reading the cross ... "

More logical, more efficient, cross-reading is not easy, however, offered some casual puff linear scrolling. Above all, it requires the reader an analysis time, when it happens on every page: is it a single page (as some items fit on one page) or the beginning of a long vertical paper?

Then she demands a choice: do I really want to read this? That decision will be made solely on the visible elements on the first page ... And the reader will not access the rest of the article, including images, descriptions, headings could catch his eye. M magazine, weekly gratut World, for example seems to suffer particularly from this architecture. Deconstruction of the creative

If newspapers published by miLibris on tablets and smartphones respect the layout of the paper versions, the company has developed an original method. "We started by building a very solid technical platform, capable of handling very large volumes that we provide. "Said William Monteux. "When we receive the PDF editors, an engine expert analysis items to categorize the various components. It identifies the title, hat, body text, headings, any boxes ... This phase allows to optimize the layout of the page depending on the terminal on which it will be displayed. We also get reduced loading times; the reader can start reading the newspaper while the download continues in the background. "

Two types of displays are available for reading on the iPad Team. The entire page is displayed, and a double-tap on a column enlarged to 100% to allow reading. Another option, a long press on the dedicated page opens a window that displays a list of topics on the left and designated item on the right.

This approach has the advantage of total flexibility in the presentation of a set of items: miLibris currently experimenting with reading lights for the aggregation of original articles from various sources, which could one day, give the reader a concept meta-aggregators like newspaper or Flipboard.

"Depending on the case," said Olivier Boutin at Lagardère Interactive "each title we carried on shelves offers one of the three types of experiments. The simplest method is the homothetic PDF, the PDF is then enriched, always a strict reproduction of the printed version but with the addition of video, audio or slideshows. Finally, the most successful consists only remaquetté magazine like Paris Match and Elle A Table. It not only Deputy enrichments video, sound, images, but also the "serviciel", such as for Elle A Table, a pack of recipes, a conversion table, a timer ... "

In this case, the production of this additional content requires a new organization "This magazine requires a dedicated team to produce tablet version. To take the example of Paris-Match, the team participates in the editorial meetings where decisions are complementary content. "

The week of video game is a free magazine iPad, which makes extensive use of multimedia functions: the bottom of this article for example is a moving image, while many videos are available.

To develop digital versions of magazines, often mentioned the value of multimedia enhancements such as video. But readers may have other expectations, especially their habit inherited from the Internet. Online media offer features that you may be surprised not to find in a magazine rich: and the social dimension offered by blogs and info sites where people can respond with comments, share via Twitter, Facebook. Habits "participatory" have powerfully prevalent among Internet users, who may experience a sense of frustration at not being able to react to an article "locked". Frequency and digital

Even more annoying, the nature of the concept of fixed magazine. A periodical paper, in principle, is defined by its publishing pattern: daily, weekly, monthly. Essential in the world of print, this concept loses all reason to be digital, which contrary to nature "real time" is emerging as an essential dimension. When, on the home screen of a tablet, rub the icon site info updated continuously, and that of a fixed magazine for a whole month, one wonders if it is not likely to be deleted before publication of the next issue ... In recognition of these problems, publishers are trying to exploit the features available in the publishing tools. If the integration of comments is not always available, access to Facebook and Twitter is spreading slowly.

"Using rich content is now more a technical problem, but one option available to editors. "Said William Monteux for mLibris. "So Challenges made use of original media, from videos made by the editor; Here insert in its pages a real time news wire ..."

Publishing tools offer features that integrate into the pages of a magazine's content real time, as an opportunity to view a website. "The integration may be relatively strong" ensures Matthew Kopp "The new version 2 Aquafadas publishing tools allows one to place RSS feeds in a slideshow, a publication of images in real time in a static page. "

If publishers still progressing with caution, we sense that success is beginning to emerge. Monteux William cites an original indicator. "In literary publishing, digital corresponds to an average conversion rate of 0.4%: 100 for hard copies sold, they sell 0.4 digital copy. Regarding magazines, we find a rate of 4 to 5%. "

"In the digital as in print," says Claudia Zimmer ", it's always marketing that holds the keys to success of a title! Nevertheless, the emergence of Newsstand (the Apple iPad kiosk, ndr) resulted in a real takeoff. We saw the first start when the subscription sales have been implemented, but now Newsstand really launched the application. "" It is far too early to make a real record, "notes Olivier Boutin," but some of our digital titles are starting to get results. Our strategy is to assert a presence on all platforms ... including the iPad, which can still qualify for emerging market today. "